Henry the Eighth
by J Daisy
Summary: James Wilson married three seperate women. These are their stories.
1. Remember The Yenta

_Disclaimer…I don't own anything except the characters I create. I do not have rights or possession of Rice Krispies or Wishin' and Hopin'. The opinions of the characters that are expressed through this story are not mine; I have no problem with Dusty Springfield._

_Author's Note…For the record, all the chapters are going to be this long. But I am actually kinda worried that it moves too fast. Tell me what you think in your review, if you decide to leave one. Anyway. If anyone would like to offer their services as a beta, that would be awesome. Thanks!_

"**One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."**

**-Carl Sagan**

I suppose the first thing you want to know about me is the way I look, because the general public likes to splash in the shallow end of the pool. Not that I'm judging the general public (what right do I possess to judge something I am a part of?), it is just a fact. As a professional matchmaker, I can honestly tell you that approximately 95 of the men and women that come to me ask me what the person I have deemed their significant other is like. To this I respond that they will probably fail at any romantic relationship they pursue because they are basing it on something that will change drastically every ten years.

One client insolently replied to this by saying that as a doctor, he knew that such things can be avoided with the help of surgery, and for the record, was I single. I said no.

That was the first time I lied to my husband, but it was certainly not the last.

**XXXxxxXXX**

He is late.

_Of course he is late, _I fret. _It is karma. You dated a client. You lose, sir! You lose!_

Perhaps he will never show up. That would be best, I suppose. Just get this whole big karmatic mess out of my system by getting stood up. And, this way, I will never even get the chance to become further attracted to him. Instead, I will harbor an unrequited love in the depths of my soul, nurse it like a mother to her babe, and name my multiple cats different variations of the name 'James.'

Am I getting a bit carried away?

Nevertheless, the doorbell rings just as I have reached my tenth deviation. I moan; Mamie was the single cutest orange tabby in the _world. _I trudge towards the door and find my former date standing on the threshold, bashfully holding out a bouquet of daisies and full of excuses. ("A woman _right about _to give birth…on the sidewalk! I couldn't just walk away, what with my medical degree!") My brain is screaming bloody murder to stay away from this guy, and is perversely happy to have a catalyst to exercise the 'right thing to do' to the guy my mother warned me about.

Unfortunately for me, my mother never said a word about cheekbones.

So I cheekily tell him that I'm rather disappointed that he has already gotten in between some woman's legs and that I hope that he is not some pimp in a lab-coat. He assures me he isn't.

See? He lies too.

**XXXxxxXXX**

For a man-whore, he is surprisingly chivalrous. James "Call Me Jimmy" Wilson (which I never will) takes off my coat for me, holds the door open, and tells me that I do not need to be on a diet when I decline dessert.

"How can you be sure I'm on a diet," I ask him saucily, peering over my half-empty wine glass.

"From the sirloin steak and sour cream--a combination I still cannot understand, by the way--I gathered you weren't exactly a health nut," he informs me.

"You know of a diet that lets me eat sirloin steak and sour cream?" I grin. _Got him._

He frowns. "I'm sure there's one out there. If you want, I'll ask this nutritionist I know…"

I hold up my hand to stop him. "That won't be necessary. Besides, you're not my doctor; you don't know what kind of eating plan I should be on."

"How do you know? Maybe I happen to have a friend who has a friend who's a doctor who just happens to have your records on file."

"That's impossible," I tell him happily.

"Nothing's impossible."

"Except for that. That's impossible."

"And why is it impossible," he quizzes me, intrigued.

"Because I don't have a doctor."

"Wha…_why_!"

"So I can go out with whomever I want to without having to worry about some medical posse telling my doctor date my real age," I quip. He doesn't crack a grin. "Ok, ok, ok. Fine. I don't have medical insuarance. I'm my own employer, and I can't exactly afford private insuarance at this point."

He does not look impressed. Apparently, in James Wilson's slightly narrow-minded world, there is no excuse for not having a regular practitioner.

"Besides," I airily tell him, "I don't believe in conventional medicine."

This he cannot believe. "Yeah, right."

"It's true."

"Come _on. _Are you seriously trying to tell me you can cure cancer with a few herbs, supplements, and back massages?"

Narrow-minded _and _ignorant. My conscience is rearing its ugly head again and is telling me, rather loudly, that to be fair; I _did_ provoke him. But then again, there is my pride. I can't exactly tell him that if I did get cancer, I would be visiting with the most highly-certified oncologist I can afford so fast there would be a Caite-shaped hole in the door. "Watch it," I snap.

He opens his mouth and closes it, apparently rethinking what he was going to say.

"I believe an apology is in order." (Why not? I have definitely ruined my chances with this guy; I deserve to have a little fun with him!)

He frowns again, rightly annoyed with my arrogance. Nevertheless, he mumbles something resembling regret and pulls out his credit card as the waiter makes his way over.

This I will not stand for and I hold my hand up. "James, I just put you through what was possibly one of the worst meals in your life. You shouldn't have to pay."

"Actually," he says as the waiter walks away, plastic in palm, "I was just going to ask if you wanted to go out again."

**XXXxxxXXX**

The question comes on June 3, at exactly 2:54 in the morning. We are both naked; the only thing covering our entangled bodies is a thin blue sheet with a few holes here and there. It is a scene of sloppiness and imperfection, but I can not take any of this in. I can only gape.

"Well?"

Instead of answering, I roll over onto my side of the bed and take deep, cleansing, breaths.

"Caite?"

"I want to go to sleep," I say tersely.

He sighs; it is a sad, defeated sigh. I'm sure there are a thousand other ways he has pictured this evening going, and this certainly does not fit in with one of those fantasies. Then again, it was never mine either. As a child, I never pictured myself to be naked or in bed (my naïve little self always fashioned my wedding night as my 'first time') and my prince varied from Rod Stewart to Jack Lord, depending on what day it was.

Finally, I give a muffled reply with my face pressed into my pillow: "Yes."

I can practically hear his mind racing, desperately trying to figure out what I meant.

I'll help him out. "I'll marry you." He says nothing. Did he fall asleep? Did he leave? Did he just decide he is going to point blank not hear anything else I say?

I hear a shifting in the bed, and he rolls over, on top of me. Under his weight, I cannot breathe. I close my eyes, and exhale. "Yes, I'll marry you."

Yes, I'll marry you. Yes, I'll marry you. Yes, I'll marry you. Yes, I'll marry you and I'll be Mrs. James Wilson. Mrs. Caite Wilson. George and Dina Mason are pleased to invite you to the marriage of their daughter, Catherine Arabella Mason to James Evan Wilson, son of Michael and Cara Wilson.

I do not even realize that I have just agreed to marry a man I have known for five months until dawn. "James," I say that morning, rolling over to kiss his cheek, "I'll be happy to marry you."

**XXXxxxXXX**

The morning of my wedding, I still cannot believe I have been roped into wearing my mother's wedding dress. I _wish _I could say that it seemed like a good idea at first, but I can't. It was _never _a good idea.

I used to live in rural Maine, and on my block, there were only three houses. Mine was in the middle; and a boy lived on either side, both my age. They were named Dylan and John, and they were my best friends. We were the three musketeers, thick as thieves.

One day, Dylan had dared me to climb up the giant tree across the street. It was our Everest; no one had ever climbed it before. I argued the whole way through: _No, I would not climb that tree, I'll fall. No, I will not grab that branch right there, it's too high. No, I will not jump down, I'll break my arm and somebody will have to take my notes in school tomorrow._

It was Dylan that convinced me to climb, grab, and jump. He used a simple, time-tested logic, something I never should have fallen for: _What are you, chicken? _

So I had done it.

My mother, who, by the way, is now divorced, applied a similar technique: "What, Caite, what's the problem? Getting cold feet or something?"

Ultimately, not only did I climb the tree to the very top, but my pant leg got caught on a branch, so when I jumped off; I was hanging upside down and hit my head on the tree-trunk, thus rendering me unconscious. But that wasn't even the grunt of my injuries. I got a scar on my right ear, and, to the day, I cannot wear earrings.

I should have bought my own wedding dress.

**XXXxxxXXX**

The first day James comes home late for work is on our third anniversary. His collar is undone and his hair is all over the place and while I know for a fact he was wearing a tie this morning, he is not wearing one now. Any other fidgety, nagging, wife would immediately assume her husband is having an affair, but I know _my _husband is a creature of habit and comfort. Our marriage may not be one of hot and cold passion, like our young relationship was, but it is the soft spot in the couch, something I can depend on.

That, and James has been treating a sweet teenager, barely eighteen, for leukemia.

"How was Madeline today?"

"Not too good. Infection. Did you find that Pete guy a date?"

"Yes, but a man. I don't like to set up same-sex couples without, you know, _knowing _that's what the client wants."

James smirks wanly at this and shuffles to the kitchen quietly. I can hear him rummaging around the cabinets; looking for something to eat. "Didn't save me dinner tonight?"

It takes me a split-second to decide not to tell James that he forgot. Feeling even a little upset with it seems petty…my husband is dealing with cancer kids and I'm angry that he wasn't home on time! "Sorry," I reply. "Would you like to go out? Maybe some fast-food?"

"No thanks," he says rather sadly. "I'm fine."

There is silent for a few moments. "Sorry about Madeline," I call out awkwardly, uncomfortable with the silence.

He appears in the doorway, holding the empty box of Rice Krispies that I have finished this morning and the carton of expired milk that I should have thrown out a week ago. He is the picture of pathetic. "And I'm sorry I forgot our anniversary." He yawns. "Look, do you mind if we do the whole nice dinner thing another night? I'm exhausted."

"No, it's fine." He looks doubtful. "Really, it is."

I am not convinced, but he is, or he is just too tired to care, and that is all that is important.

**XXXxxxXXX**

Tanya Annette Evans paces the length of my office, running her hand through her hair. Her heels click against the new wooden floor, and if she scratches it, I might have to claw her eyeballs out. She has nothing to worry about; _her _boyfriend does not come home late from work, so immersed is he with someone she has no right to be jealous of. _Her _boyfriend does not forget his ties at work, what with his very long day. _Her _boyfriend did not forget her birthday was yesterday, even though he has a busy schedule.

This is why I hate to stick it out with relationships, professional or personal: They always leave you confused, tired, angry, and miserable.

"Tanya," I say carefully, "I cannot help you with this."

"Why not! You're my yenta," she whines.

"If you have a problem, you have to work it out with him. You have to talk with him. You have to communicate," I stress, with the word _hypocrite_ burning itself onto my mind.

"But I'll sound like a crazy person if I bring this up," Tanya complains.

"Welcome to the club. This is _your _relationship, not mine. This was your mistake, not mine. I know this wasn't how you expected things to be, but this is how they are, and you just have to deal with that. I'm sorry if you want a fairy-tale romance, because you're not getting that. That's not how it works; you can't sign up for love. You can't do that. You can't do that," I rasp, over and over again. "I didn't sign up for this," I finally sob.

This is not the time and place for it, but here is the cry that has been building up inside of me for since the anniversary. Things have gotten worse and worse, and things are getting worse and worse. My sobs are harder now. They consume all my energy. I tuck my legs up under me just as I hear the door slamming open and shut. I bury my face into my hands and I just keep bawling.

I sit like this, tucked up inside myself, for an hour. When it is up, my eyes are dry and my face feels stiff. Taking a deep breath, I get up, leave my office, ignoring the half-dozen or so clients I am supposed to meet with today, and steadily walk down the stairs, my knuckles a ghostly white next to the black banister.

I get in my car, and the last thing I hear before point blank refusing to listen to anything anymore are the first few words of the original _Wishin' and Hopin'_.

Dusty Springfield does not know what she is talking about.

**XXXxxxXXX**

When I arrive at home, James is already there, attempting to make dinner. He does not hear me walk in; he is humming too loudly to, what else, _Wishin' and Hopin'_.

I place my hands on my hips, and immediately hate myself for doing so. "James," I say, cursing every word that leaves my lips, "we need to talk."

He looks at me like a deer caught in headlights. "I know," he says sadly. "But before you say anything…there's something I have to tell you."

He opens and closes his mouth, like a fish out of water. I do not have patience for this; I look at him expectantly. "Well?"

The words seem to inflate his mouth before he says them, as if they have been waiting a long time to be blurted out. "I had an affair."

**XXXxxxXXX**

Out of body experiences, I believe, are the best things that have ever befallen human beings. They are a protection against shock, a contraceptive for pain. If not for out of body experiences, my heart probably would have simply stopped beating, too mesmerized by what was going on in front of it to do what it needed to endure.

I am a phantom, hovering above my own body. This is the only way I know I do not have a 'loser' stamp on my forehead and that no one is hiding under the table, laughing at me.

So, with an empty heart and a dormant brain, I can--and will--continue.

**XXXxxxXXX**

"You had an affair," I say carefully. "You had an affair."

He nods, and helps me to a seat. _Almost like our first date_, my phantom thinks perversely. "Caite, I-"

"Don't talk," I snap, shivering suddenly. I take a deep breath. "With who?"

He pales slightly. "A gir--_woman_--I work with."

_He had an affair with a doctor, a woman smarter and more accomplished and probably prettier than you that cures children that are dying_, my phantom tells me. "A doctor," I ask weakly.

"No…"

"A nurse?"

"No…"

I hear my phantom swear as the realization hits the both of us. He slept with a patient. "That's…that's illegal," I stutter.

He suddenly seems to get what I am thinking, and throws his arms up in the air. "I didn't sleep with a patient, Caite! Jeez…"

_Hey! He has _no _right to be angry at _you _Are you seriously going to take that? What happened to you, Caite? You used to be so smart, so self-assured, so independent. Now…look at you. What the hell happened?_

I got married, I tell my phantom. Marriage changes everything it shouldn't, and keeps all the worst things the same.

_No, no it doesn't_, my phantom insists. _James is scum! He's the dirt on your shoe! Why are you even listening to this?_

Because, I inform my phantom exasperatedly, I have to know.

"Caite," James asks cautiously. "Did you hear what I just said?"

"No," I enlighten him crossly.

"It was with a patient's sister. Remember Madeline? Her older sister, Alice, always came in with her and she needed company while Madeline was having chemo and I was there and it just…happened." I suck in my breath as he puts a comfort-intending hand on my shoulder. "I swear I didn't plan this, Caite."

"Don't call me 'Caite,'" I snap, shrugging his hand away.

_Leave, Caite. Go. You've heard more than you need to hear. Just leave. You were fine before, you'll be fine after. Come on, Caite. Go. _

Getting up suddenly, I leave the kitchen and walk into the bedroom that is no longer ours, but his. Not mine. Nothing of mine will stay here.

Getting down on my knees, I angrily pull open the drawers and stuff my clothes in the duffel in his closet. I do not give myself the trip down memory lane when I see the small hole in the thick material. I do not think. I do not act. My phantom, satisfied with the job she has done, leaves me alone.

When I am done only twenty-two minutes later, there are no clothes left. I did not realize I was surviving on so little. All-business, I drag the now overstuffed duffel out of the bedroom and approach James. "Did you call a cab," I ask coldly.

"No," he answers, and does not try to stop me when I grab the portable telephone and dial the operator.

As soon as I am finished talking, he starts. "Caite, don't go. We can work this out." But I look at him, and I hope to G/d that my eyes can plainly tell him that it is a lost cause, because I don't think anything else can.

I leave our small house and sit down on one of the steps leading up to our house. It's not that I want my marriage to be over, I realize, but that I don't want it to begin again. That is the only way to make it work, the lies we have woven around each other and our lives are too tangled to ever figure the truth out. Frankly, at this point I can barely differentiate what has really happened and what was a mere fabrication.

Did we ever even love each other?

I'm sure we must have at some point. We did get married, after all.

But now we're getting divorced. And that, I decide as I board the taxi, is the only thing I should try and remember.


	2. These Dark Days of Autumn Rain

_Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I create. You know what's mine and you definitely know what's not._

_Author's Note: Does anyone remember Henry The Eighth? This was supposed to be the second chapter of it, but I decided that it was better as a stand-alone. Anyway, this story would never have been posted with the help of the amazing _**_bitingbedbugz_**_ and the brilliant _**_betahat_**_. Honestly, a girl couldn't ask for two better people to help with grammar and characters. If you liked this, please feel free to visit my LiveJournal - things get posted much sooner there and I love to chat about everything and anything!/shameless self-pimpage_

"**My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane."  
-Robert Frost**

"Adelaide, sweetie", my grandma once said to me, "come here. I have something to tell you about love." It, apparently, is really an infinity of an ocean. According to her, there are waves and waves of colors in this ocean; red for the heart, green for the mind, blue for the soul. They crash on rocks and slap against sand, but you can't break water. It can evaporate, and go through a rabbit hole of stormy clouds, but eventually, it'll drizzle right back into the sea it came from.

My grandma's philosophy somehow skipped the part where the rain falls through polluted air to the point where it becomes acidic. And the part where it's so abused that it's sickening to even wade through. And the part when you're in so deep, you can't see your own hand in front of you.

You couldn't expect a woman who had met her husband in ninth grade and had sailed smoothly onward to know that gravity from the moon pulls on the ocean so much, that its part of the Earth Science curriculum to understand that there's a hill of water on either side of the Earth. You couldn't expect her to comprehend that she could be in Canada or she could be in Zaire, and it would be uphill both ways.

Maybe I'm a little bitter.

But I've got the right.

* * *

It is the last period of the last day before Thanksgiving vacation, and my Earth Science class is as restless as the sea. They would much rather learn whether or not a tree that falls in a forest that no one is in to hear makes a sound than they would about the silent fossils that lay under it. Of course, it's an empty question; no ninth grader really cares about the unheard, the unseen. The unfelt.

Their depth, or lack thereof, is why I don't mind being called out of class to report to the main office to meet with an "urgent visitor." That, and the fact that I need distraction from the truth that Thanksgiving is mine and my sister Madeline's favorite holiday. Or, put more accurately, it was our favorite holiday--Madeline ran out of Thanksgivings a month ago.

Now the classroom that I teach in is on the west side of the third floor, and the main office is on the east side of the first floor, so the distance between them is about four minutes, but when I walk there, it seems like it's all the time in the world. I'm thinking about the tree question. What it's really asking is, can something cause a phenomenon, even one as basic as sound, if no one is there to play witness to it. But what if the question were to be extended? What if someone arrives at the forest after the tree has fallen? Would they hear it? What happens if someone has watched the tree all her life, fed it, nurtured it, witnessed its growth from a tiny sapling to a towering oak…then watched it collapse? Would she still hear the sound of its demise rushing against her ears? Would she still be able to love it? What if the tree had betrayed her? Would she still be able to hate it?

Can you hate someone that no longer exists?

It's funny that the hallways have so many Thanksgiving decorations up, seeing that the students could care less about the actual holiday. They stopped, I think, when they learned that Magellan got eaten by cannibals and Columbus massacred, killed, and raped the natives that he encountered. The students probably think that the Native Americans should have kicked the Pilgrims out on their asses when they had the chance. They should.

When I enter the office, I immediately see who the urgent visitor is--Dr. James Wilson. In what I see as my past life, he played the part of Highly-Recommended Oncologist--"he can cure anything!" my friend Lynn, a breast cancer survivor whom I no longer speak to, had raved to Madeline and me.

Turns out, he couldn't save either of us.

* * *

I had always noticed that Madeline had a sweet and charming personality, and that she was very popular and that she was lucky enough to posses a perfect button nose and flawless skin and long blonde hair. Madeline was always the one to include me in her plans, and not the other way around.

I first noticed that Madeline had a hoarse voice the night she came over to have dinner with my boyfriend and I. When her chair was too close to his three days later when we all met for lunch, she was out of breath. She had a cough a week later when I walked in her apartment and saw her in bed with my boyfriend. "You better get that checked out," I had said and then, I left and I thought it was for good.

Madeline had walked back into my life two days after I walked out of hers. "I have cancer," she said.

Good, I thought and since Madeline couldn't read minds, all she could see was that I was crying and she took that as forgiveness.

I had always noticed that Madeline wasn't one for apologies.

* * *

"I really don't want to see you, ever. Please just go away," I tell Dr. Wilson the exact moment he says, "How've you been?"

"Pretty crappy," I say. "Good-bye."

He doesn't follow me, but he doesn't leave me alone either. "You look…gaunt," he observes as I'm walking out.

I tell one of the hall monitors to make sure he doesn't follow me, and when I turn my face towards him to point him out, I see genuine worry etched onto his face in the shape of my little sister's grave.

The thought slices through me, and nausea and a feeling I can't quite name settles into my abdomen. I walk back in. "What're you doing on Thanksgiving?"

He smiles, and I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. "Nothing," he says, and the word is a bridge between us that seems to stretch across the world.

* * *

He wasn't lying. That next day, when I go over to his apartment (as per the directions he has given me), he is alone in his kitchen, chopping up vegetables. The radio is on, playing holiday tunes, and I sort of want to ask him how many watts his lightbulbs have, because they emit some sort of cheery glow that mine are in severe lack of. It kind of makes me not want to leave.

He smiles when he sees me. "I hope you brought marshmallows," he says in lieu of greeting, "because my sweet potato dish isn't sweet without them."

"If they're sweet potatoes, shouldn't they already be sweet?"

"If a sweet potato is underground, and no one's there to dig it up, does it actually have a taste?" he asks, and even though my insides feel as though they have cooled to ice, I laugh. It'd be funny, if he were telling it to anyone that hadn't been thinking along the same lines a day before. But despite this, or maybe because of it, we fall into easy conversation and an hour later, we are sitting in front of the oven with a closed bottle of wine.

"This year," he tells me, "more than ten people will be killed by a vending machine."

The fact lingers between us before we both start laughing. "Blue eyes are the most sensitive to light, and dark brown are the least," I reply. We started the game while he stuffed vegetables into the turkey half an hour ago, and it's too fun to let up.

"The testicles of an octopus are located in its head."

"As opposed to…?" I joke and we laugh again. "Ok, here's one; you're more likely to get a cold by shaking hands than by kissing."

He smiles, and leans in close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath. "On Valentines Day in Ontario, in 1999, 1,500 couples met in one place and kissed each other."

I lean in closer. "The longest kiss ever," I whisper, because that's the loudest I need to go, "lasted 417 hours."

"I think we can beat that," he says, and his lips are chapped and his teeth bump against mine, and it's the best kiss I've ever had, even though I've had it with him before.

And its ends all too soon when the door slams open and a man and a woman walk in, both speaking loudly to each other.

"Hon-ey, I'm ho-ome!" the man calls out.

James closes his eyes in what seems to be a mix of exasperation and disappointment. "I didn't think they would be coming over," he explains under his breath as he helps me up. Then, "we're in the kitchen!"

They are an intimidating couple; it is not the woman's long, curly brown hair or the man's electric blue eyes that immediately puts me on-guard, but their purposeful strides, the shift in atmosphere, has me on edge.

"House," James greets, "Stac--Dr. Cuddy?" His voice rises on the last note questioningly but he moves past his mistake and puts his arm around my waist, then my back, then, more confidently, my waist again, and introduces me as Addie, His…Friend.

"You left out the with benefits part," House observes immediately. When I get over my surprise at his uninhibited gall, I think that he's an asshole.

I'm not the only one who thinks so, apparently, because Dr. Cuddy pinches his arm and hisses for 'Greg' to "behave." He wants to know if he'll get spanked if he doesn't, but she doesn't pacify him with a reaction and turns to me. "It's nice to meet you, Addie. Please, call me Lisa…" She says something else, but it's hard to pay attention to her and not the cryptic looks House keeps sending me.

We move into James' comfortably decorated living room and before James even sits down, House launches right into conversation. "So, have you found a lawyer yet?" he asks cheerfully.

James scowls. "No. But I thought that maybe you could recommend one."

House scowls in return, and I'm beginning to get the feeling like there's something that I'm missing here. But House doesn't pay attention to me and continues, his voice full of artificial sweetness and awe. "Oh, you're trying to change the subject, aren't you? No need for modesty here!"

"Or tact, apparently," James mutters, and I'm _really_ starting to think there's something they're not telling me.

"And let me tell you, I'm impressed," House continues. ""It's only been a month. That must be a personal record for you." He leans in closer like he's terribly curious, literally on the edge of his seat. "How do you do it, Jimster? Is it your boyish charm? Your cheekbones?" He smiles then, like he knows a horrible secret. "It's all that stuff you put in your hair, isn't it? I knew I should have invested in a hair dryer."

Had I paid attention to all of House's speech, I think I may have politely excused myself and bolted. But my mind was stuck on one thing:

_It'd only been a month._

A month since what?

…Madeline?

A sick feeling settles into the pit of my stomach, the marrow of my bones.

"Ok," James says, "I'll lend you mine. Let's move on."

But it's clear to everyone in the room that House _won't_ move on. I'm growing more and more uncomfortable, and it must show, because House suddenly reels on me. "Sorry, Annie is it? I didn't mean to exclude from the conversation. But your good 'friend', Dr. Wilson, and I are just discussing his marriage. Or rather, the end of it. His wife split a month ago, and I'm just glad he's getting back in the saddle, you know?'

Oh.

"House…"

"And damn, if you're not pretty. And classy, because really, not just anyone would jump right into it with someone who's not even legally divorced yet."

"House!"

The room suddenly seems to be growing smaller and smaller, and something is pushing down on my chest so that I can't breath and suddenly, I can't seem to remember what the hell I'm doing here.

"Yup. Classy. K-L-A-S-S-A-Y. Classy Annie."

"It's Addie," I tell him curtly as I push my seat back. A sickening scraping sound reverberates through the room as they watch me grab my bag and leave.

I am out the door and halfway down the hallway when James catches up with me. "Addie, wait--"

I keep walking, wrenching the door to the outside open, and I let the biting cold of November cool my flushed cheeks. I don't hear what I should be waiting for, and I don't want to either. I keep hearing him telling me to stop. I guess he didn't expect me to listen to him, though, because he nearly crashes into me as I whirl around to face him.

"You asshole!" I hiss at him, grabbing onto my embarrassment and using it to fuel my anger. Anger is good. Anger is keeping me from collapsing. "You weren't trying to _console_ me back then, distract me from everything. You were only helping yourself! You were _married!_ And you slept with me--_I_ slept with _you!_ I helped you cheat on your wife! You--you bastard! You lying, cheating BASTARD! And now! _Now,_ you invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner only to have two condescending doctors throw it all in my face?!"

He tries to say something, but I'm on a roll.

"And you knew! You _knew_ that I would say yes because I'm vulnerable and lonely now, just like I was vulnerable and lonely back then." I can't see straight anymore, tears are pooling in my eyes. My voice drops dangerously to a low, calm pitch. "You used me to cheat on your wife just like they cheated on me."

This time, instead of walking away…I run.

I don't get very far, though, because James places a hand on my shoulder and spins me around so our noses are only centimeters apart. "Addie, listen to me--no, listen!--what House said was true. I was married, and I am going divorce proceedings. And I know I should be--Addie, just hear me out!--I know I should be depressed and angry and she should be consuming all my thoughts…but she's not."

I don't know why I stop struggling against him, but I do. Looking anywhere but his pleading eyes, I stare intently at the ground, the dead tree behind him, at the overcast sky.

He's still talking. "_You're_ the one that's consuming all my thoughts. I know it's wrong, but the last month of my marriage was the happiest, because you were in it." He searches out my gaze until I can do nothing but stare back. "And I understand that you might never want to see me again. And I can't tell you how sorry I am. But Addie…I need you. Please. I want…please, I just want a shot with you. I want us to work."

I hate him for this, I really do. I hate him.

But…hate's the easiest emotion. It's black and white, and there aren't any smudges or anything. It's crisp. It's clean. It's understandable. Hate: the best four-letter-word in the English language.

James is here. James is here to hate. He's here.

I keep looking at him on this cold November day, and a small wind picks up. I mutter something incomprehensible to even myself, but it must have been right to his ears, because suddenly he's hugging me, and mumbling some kind of thanks.

So, for now, I guess I've decided that I'll be here too.

* * *

The morning of my wedding, I think maybe I should learn to disappear.

It can't be that hard. One minute you're there, then you close your eyes and concentrate, and then, you're gone. Off to some tropical island free of mother-in-laws and florists and caterers and rabbis.

So I try it. I close my eyes. I focus. I imagine an island. I imagine a tundra. I imagine a rainbow, a sandstorm, a city, a farm, anywhere but here. But when I open my eyes, I am exactly where I began; lying next to the man I will soon be marrying.

I realize I have to leave now. It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.

I eat with my bridesmaids. They help me put on my dress. My maid of honor does my makeup, but the eye shadow is too heavy, and I think Madeline would have done a better job, if she was here. But she's not.

So I walk down the aisle. I say I do.

I wish I had learnt to disappear when I had the chance.

* * *

For our honeymoon, we take a road trip. James has a rent-a-car, a small truck, really, in which we have loaded our luggage, a cooler, and some other necessities. "We'll take our problems as they come," James said as we passed the sign that signaled we were leaving New Jersey. "We can handle it."

That was over a week ago, and now we're sitting outside some fortune-teller's tent that's hopefully somewhere between Sedona and Las Vegas. Or, rather, _I'm_ sitting outside some fortune-teller's tent--James is already inside.

So I'm all alone out here. Things look different in this part of the country than they did back home, and not in the Toto-we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore sort of way. Sure, the sky looks bigger and the ground looks longer but it's not just that. My head's clearer here, and it makes it easier to see all my own details. My hands are dry and cracked. My hair has split ends. I'm more breakable all around--and I thought what didn't kill me was supposed to have made me stronger.

As James comes out of the tent, a wind picks up and blows around rich-colored sand, but my vision is still clear enough to see that he looks immensely disappointed. "Your turn," he says as he sits down and begins to draw lines in the sand.

I am two seconds in the tent before the fortune teller, a woman so bony she looks as though she could be made of wires, sighs melodramatically. "Oh, honey," she says sadly. "Why are you so down? You're in a paradise."

I wipe a bead of sweat off my forehead. "Only a fool would consider this a paradise," I tell her, referring to the heat. "No offense."

"None taken," she says, and when she smiles at me, her brown eyes seem to take up half her face. "Because you're right. So enjoy it. And I won't charge you for that," she adds, as if she has actually put an ounce of effort into her job. "You'll need to save up. Just--well, I'm not Seeing very clearly today, but…what comes around, goes around. So be prepared."

When I walk out, James stands up to greet me. "So," he says as he cracks his knuckles nervously, "what'd she say?"

I hop in the car. "Nothing I couldn't have gotten off a fortune cookie."

"Oh. Good."

There's something about his voice that should worry me, and I wonder about the tone only because as his wife, I should. "What about you?"

"Huh?"

"What'd she say to you?"

He keeps his eyes trained to the road ahead of him, and does not look at me. "Nothing that's important now," he tells me, and we drive off into what seems like a rabbit hole of possibilities.

* * *

Graduations suck.

They're long and they're boring and there's much too much polyester for them to really be touching or moving. The fact that as a teacher, I am obligated to be here, only serves to frustrate me further. I hate obligations. They're the downside of everything.

Heath Clinton Gellar receives his diploma. I heard from his guidance counselor that he got into Stanford, but with a name like that; his parents only aspired for him to go to Hollywood. Lauren Gerard strides across the small stage and shakes hands with the superintendent. At eighteen, she's more confidant in herself than any teenager has the right to be. Daniel Goetz's name is called out.

He can't be blamed for the entirety of my marriage, but I think that maybe he's responsible for starting it all. He was the one that asked that tree question, the one that first had me wondering if my feelings--muddled as they were--were even real. Now, he's graduating as salutatorian, but I don't clap with the rest of the audience. I've gotten very good at being resentful.

One million years later, it's raining, and the valedictorian is in the middle of her speech about how hard her life has been. Her mom had breast cancer, then had it again, then Dad left, then her brother got hit by a car, then her sister got into drugs, then they ran out of margarine and it was raining but her mom made her go to the supermarket anyway. "…But I'm happy," she adds, brushing a strand of bright pink hair off her face. "I'm happy. My friends, my teachers, and my family have helped me realize that it wasn't my fault and that made me happy. I'm so happy. I've come so far. I'm graduating valedictorian, and I'm going to Princeton to boot. I deserve this happiness. _We_ deserve this happiness."

For goodness sakes.

"Joy doesn't discriminate, and we shouldn't either in spreading it. But it's hard to get. Hate is a contagion, and easy to catch. So don't hate. Be happy."

_Two_ million years later, 466 blue caps are tossed up into the air, and I go home. James is there, waiting for me. He has dinner on the table and, remarkably, all the laundry is done. He holds my chair out for me when I sit down. He cleans the dishes after dinner and chats comfortably to me about work.

He catches me looking at him and asks what's up. "I'm just so lucky," I tell him as a single thought, a five-word panic, unravels itself in my mind: I've made a terrible mistake.

* * *

In the days and weeks following this realization, I can only think in fragments of arguments: You should confront him. I can't do that. It's the right thing to do. It'll hurt him if I said something. It'll hurt him more if you don't say something. I just can't tell him. You're a coward. I know.

Reasonably, I have but three tangible options: Tell him, leave him, or not murmur a word. But all three require courage, something I simply don't have right now. I could wait, maybe, to see if it boomerangs back, but…

It can't go on like this.

What if he is the one to leave? What if something I say, something I do, drives him away? But no, no…they too involve courage. I can't…I can't _do_ or _say_ anything.

But I can't do nothing.

…Or maybe I could.

Push him away. Distance myself. Put other things before him. Prioritize, and put him last.

I can do _this_.

* * *

It's easier than I thought it would be. In a way, it's sort of horrifying, how seamlessly I'm able to shift from being the sort of wife that always has a kind word to say, to the sort of wife that emanates a chill whenever she walks into a room, a wife that makes you want to turn away. A wife that makes you pity the husband dumb enough to stick around.

There's the rub. I hadn't expected him to work at this marriage. He really doesn't want to divorce me. When talks that ended up one-sided failed, he tried to get me to go to marriage counseling. I refused, of course, and looked away, but not quickly enough to miss the look in his eyes. I saw hurt and betrayal…but not defeat.

It'll happen though. It has to.

Two months into the job, and he's starting to wear down. Three months, and he's staying later at work. Four months, and his smiles don't quite reach his eyes anymore. Five months, and there's a spring in his step that he refuses to acknowledge.

Six months, and the phone rings. It's that Dr. Cuddy, who I haven't seen since my wedding, wanting to know where James is.

"He's still at work," I tell her shortly. Doesn't she know that he's been staying there later and later? And his job is in the same place as hers.

"No, he's not, I saw him leave an hour and a half ago."

"With all due respect, Dr. Cuddy, you must be mistaken," I inform her with the slight edge in my voice that came with the realization I've been hating someone else all along, and I've strung along an innocent pedestrian for the ride. "I've been home watching the news, and there's no traffic, and there haven't been any accidents."

"Listen, Addie, I don't think you understand. We have a situation here. We need Wilson and we need him _now_. If he's not at work and he's not at home, then where is he?"

The truth hits me like a jet of cold water, and digs into my skin like a blade of ice. I did it. I _did_ it. I pushed him away.

I just hadn't realize that, when that happened, it would be into the arms of another woman.

For no reason at all, I suddenly feel something other than muted hatred towards my husband.

Dr. Cuddy mutters something about Dr. House and a problem with his leg (I think she said something about an infarction), but I hang up without saying good-bye. I slide down against the wall and take a few steadying breaths.

Before leaning over and throwing up, all over my clean white carpet.

* * *

James doesn't come home that night, or the next morning, so I call in sick for work and go to see him. He's not in House's room, who has apparently been admitted, but asleep in his own office with smudges of insomnia under his eyes. I don't want to be the one to tear him from his dreams, but it's my cross to bear…I'm half the reason he was here in the first place.

He hasn't even blinked the sleep out of his eyes when he begins to talk. "I cheated, Addie. I slept with some other woman and I'm sorry that I betrayed you, but…listen, the ball's in your court now. You can stay or go. I'll stay if you do, but if not--if you really, truly, don't love me--then don't fool yourself. If this is an empty marriage, if it would all be for nothing, then…then don't stay, Addie. Don't."

He shifts his position before talking again. "It's your decision Addie, so…"

…So make the right one.

* * *

Two weeks later, I walk into House's hospital room carrying a bouquet of flowers and a thick manila folder. Stacy, House's "real" girlfriend, (despite the fact that he seems to be in a weird relationship with Dr. Cuddy that she won't ever touch) is curled into herself in a chair, but it is Cuddy's jacket that's draped across the foot of the bed. My eyes travel up his legs, and past his torso, until we're making eye-contact.

"Oh, Annie. You shouldn't have," he says, gesturing towards the folder, but the change in his voice is so remarkable, the defeat in it so profound, that his words don't have quite the same effect on me that they had just a few years ago.

"Don't worry. They're not for you." I put the flowers on a small table next to his bed. "These are."

I begin to leave the room.

"…So those would be divorce papers for our darling James." His words catch me at the door, and I guess I could pretend that I didn't hear him and just leave this whole dumb hospital behind but…I can't.

"Why are you doing this to him?"

Because I don't know if I love or hate my own husband. Because this marriage is so toxic that I think it could kill the both of us. Because I'm tired of waking up next to him. Because suddenly, I'm afraid of not waking up next to him.

I smile wearily at him. "Because it's the right thing to do," I answer and when I walk away, I know that I'll never see him again. This, I think, is closure.

It feels good.

Outside, it begins to pour.

And so the cycle continues.


End file.
